Project BBTA

Posted by Luke Williams on October 9, 2014 in general thoughts, reiters syndrome | 4 comments

Forgive me blog for I have slipped, it’s been many months since my last post.

I did start a draft on 100 happy days, but felt no urge to complete it.

Lots of this year has sucked, there have been some awesome moments but on the whole… very sucky. It’s time to change that.

Just after I finished 100 happy days I got sick. The arthritis came back in a big bad, I’m struggling to move, kinda way (I won’t bore you with the back story but it stems from food poisoning some years ago – see Reiters posts).

For a couple of weeks my feet and knee were so swollen I could barely stand and had to work from home.

BTW This isn’t a “oh poor me, give me sympathy” post I just need to write it down as part of my process for moving on.

When the symptoms have flared up before it’s only lasted a week, steroids, boom back to normal. Not this time.

Mentally it was hard but it was some of the stupid things that really got to me: my feet were swelled to the point i couldn’t fit in any of my shoes without severe pain… I had to buy special wide fit old person shoes. Nooooo!

I found the uncertainty challenging. At times feeling like maybe this was it, this was how my life would be now, pain.

Some plans had to change, I wasn’t able to train for Land’s End to John O’Groats and took the soul destroying decision to postpone (I WILL do it next year).

But after months of tests, drugs by the bucket load I’m coming out the other side. I owe a great debt to the team at the RNLI who were so supportive, especially Emily and Nathan.

So, what is project BBTA?

This is the fight back. Time to Bring Back The Awesome!

Now I’m mostly better, my feet and index fingers being the only bits really affected, it’s time to take it up a notch.

There are a few small changes to my life like the medication I’m on means I can’t drink.

I’ve got a list of new things I’m going to try as part of BBTA (post to follow).

I’m also going to make more time to say thanks. Where I encounter people being awesome, I’ll write to their head office to spread the awesome.

Bring it.